Another Hawaii First

One thing about Hawaii, we like to be first. We were the first to pass the equal rights amendment, and are proud that Title IX got renamed after our own Patsy Mink who worked like crazy to pass it.

Lately, we have become somewhat amiss about firsts, and we have fallen into the trap of going along with the crowd.

However, 2009 brings with it another first: Hawaii television went all digital on January 15, almost a month ahead of the nation. The reason we did it was because of the nesting patterns of the endangered dark-rumped petrel -- which lives on Haleakala where many of the analog towers were.

This brought us to the attention of Rachel Madow, who covered the item on her show -- as she said -- so she could say the word "rumped" on tv.